<nettime> electro- vs petro-state

[Felix Stalder via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>]

This is one of the best articles on geopolitics that I've read in a long 
time, not the least because it puts BRICS at the center, rather than the 
US.

https://www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/brics-in-2025/

The basic argument is that the competition between China and the US is 
now also a competition between two techno-political paradigms, one based 
on (green) electricity and one based on fossil fuels, with China being 
the largest producer of green energy (by far), while the US as become 
the largest exporter of fossil fuels.

And these are really two paradigms from which very different industrial 
policies, geopolitics, eco-politics, and even cultures (think 
petromasculinity) flow.

There is now a fierce geopolitical competition between these two 
paradigms, and the US has relatively little to offer, so it has to 
revert to brute force to keep other countries in line. This works best 
with allies (think Europe promising to buy LNG and scrapping tariffs on 
US monster cars). Also domestically, the US uses brute-force to keep 
fossil fuels competitive, cancelling almost finished green energy 
installations and gutting the EPA to offload more of the costs to public.

On the other hand, the China model (and cheap Chinese exports), allow 
countries like Pakistan to leap-frog in terms of energy production, 
installing 17GW of solar capacity in 2024 in a largely bottom-up process 
(as a comparison, Germany installed about 20GW).

As they write:

"China’s package of automation, digitalization, and electrification 
offers firms and nations not just carbon-reduction but also—more 
persuasively—productivity, efficiency, and energy sovereignty. The 
material basis of the global production, consumption and information 
systems are being remade. One doesn’t have to be a Marxist to think that 
will imply a radical transformation in global politics."

They summarize this shift as "Diversify, dedollarize, decarbonize".

And, interestingly, AI plays an important, but somewhat subordinate 
role, as part of a new industrial infrastructure, which underpins the 
electrification and digitization in all its aspects. No AGI necessary.

The article even contains an update of Carlotta Perez famous chart on 
techno-economic paradigms, with the IT/software paradigm in decline.



I came across this article via Paris Marx's Tech Won't Save US podcasts, 
where the two authors. Kate Mackenzie and Tim Sahay, were interviewed.

https://techwontsave.us/episode/291_how_chinas_renewable_push_upends_geopolitics_w_kate_mackenzie__tim_sahay

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